Google Goes Green

foobsr writes "Google today announced its RE<C project to make renewable energy cheaper than coal in the near future. The company, and its charitable arm google.org, plan to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the initiative. Larry Page stated: 'With talented technologists, great partners and significant investments, we hope to rapidly push forward. Our goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal. We are optimistic this can be done in years, not decades.'"

Great scott!

[DeeQ]

1.21 gigawatts? 1.21 gigawatts? Great Scott!

Hmmmm

[tgd]

The solution to this problem must be out on the internet somewhere... if only I had a website I could use to try to find it...

gMatrix

[sakdoctor]

It's going to be some sort of "matrix" where google plugs us all in and harvests renewable energy AND our personal info.

Re:Great scott!

[skoaldipper]

Professor Page, are you telling me you built a tiiiime machine, out of a Priiiiius?!

Consumer tracking

[Dan East]

The part I don't understand is how Google plans on tracking how consumers utilize this electricity, so they can in turn display targeted advertising through AdSense and Gmail. Surely I'm missing something.

Dan East

Re:Vested interest

[Yoozer]

Jobs doesn't have to make pledges; they just have to figure out how to convert the radiation of his reality distortion field to energy, and to use the pressure of the smugness from his customers to power iPods. Ballmer is currently busy with research to tap heat from system administrator's heads when updating, and he's already made great strides to put the kinetic energy of chairs in something useful.

Re:Vested interest

[timster]

Ah, but what about the hot air from the Apple haters? It must be good for something too!

OMG! They are going to print clickable ads on coal

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Or the wind turbines will be tuned to emit a low frequency sound plugging products, "uuusssee bbbbeeeesssstttt bbbbiiiirrrrdddd sssseeeedddddssss".

The solar cells will reflect light and write "www.sanmarcos.island.com" on the clouds.

If a slashhack can think of these, imagine what ubergooglegeek can think of!!!

Re:how do you measure black power

[stonedcat]

Does it make me a bad person if I laughed at that?

I mean I really really tried not to, but it just caught me off guard. :/

Re:Vested interest

[oliverthered]

maybe we could round up a few fan boys and point them at a wind turbine and generate some power.

Re:please stop with the Ocean Uranium Crap

[Anonymous Coward]

So, yes, we need breeder reactors, desperately. We don't need Las Vegas. We don't need Phoenix. We don't need LA or Bakersfield. And we don't need to hold on to that embarrassing meme about Uranium in sea water.

I live in Bakersfield, and see no reason why you're lumping us in with Vegas, Phoenix, and LA. But it does bring a happy tear to my eye to know that someone, somewhere in the world, knows that we exist.

Bonus: My captcha says "nonzero".

Re:Like a bat out of hell.

[shelterpaw]

If it sounds like a Tron lightcycle, then I'm game.